Friday, October 30, 2015

Bone Broth with Asian Herbs in the Slow Cooker

Bone broth is big in the paleo community, which I follow pretty closely. The first time I ever heard of bone broth was when I read Nom Nom Paleo Michelle Tam's cookbook. You can find her recipe here. Then I found the Asian style of bone broth from the Steamy Kitchen site. I'm a big fan of both ladies, especially Michelle because I met her when she came to Portland to partner with Gregory Gourdet in a paleo brunch at Departure. She was super nice!

Above you see the "before" picture. They say that bone broth is really good for you. If so, great! If not, it still tastes really good, is expensive to make, and serves as a base for great soups. And since it's fall, I'll be making lots of this all season long!

I like to bundle my herbs for easy removal afterwards, so less has to be strained, and I don't have a bunch of chopped stuff floating around everywhere. My pork bone broth has dried shrimp, a whole head of garlic in a tea ball, cilantro, green onions, and ginger. A dash of turmeric, black pepper, and ground coriander also topped everything before filtered water covered it all.

Then, you see the "after" picture. I used tongs to remove the bigger pieces. The pork neck bones yielded a healthy amount of marrow, and after cooled, very little fat. The broth was nicely gelatinous.

Above was the pork broth that I made over 28 hours. It's perfect for one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes, Hu Tieu. You can order a really legit bowl from Pho An on Sandy if you're in Portland.

The six hour chicken broth that I made looked a lot lighter. I added some Red Boat fish sauce, ground turmeric, ground coriander, some chopped green onions, and chopped cilantro to make the Asian tasting broth. It makes a great sipper!

I get my bones from New Seasons or Natural Grocers here in Oregon when I can because I like to cook with the best quality, local ingredients as often as possible. I plan to start a tradition of buying a rotisserie chicken from New Seasons weekly so that I can use the carcass for making bone broth with it. Theirs is grass fed, local, hormone-free and antibiotic-free.

In Arkansas, I chose The Fresh Market and Whole Foods for the best quality of meats. If anyone knows of direct producers that I can buy from, please comment and let me know!

For more information about the benefits of making bone broth, check out Wellness Mama.

Bone Broth with Asian Herbs in the Slow Cooker

Ingredients:

2 - 4 pounds of meaty bones from the best quality of beef, pork, or chicken

1 bunch of organic cilantro

1 bunch of organic green onions

1 chunk of organic ginger, peeled and cut in half

1 head of garlic or elephant garlic, roasted or unroasted

1/3 cup dried shrimp

1 gallon of filtered water

Directions:

Optional step: place all the bones inside a large stock pot with a splash of white wine. Cover with water. Bring up to a boil. Drain the bones, then rinse them. This is said to create less of a need to skim impurities later.

Another optional step: roast your bones in the oven 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Some believe this gives the broth more flavor. Others disagree.

Place the bones inside your slow cooker.

Add herbs and dried shrimp.

Cover with filtered water up to one inch below the top of the slow cooker insert.

Third optional step: add a dash of ground coriander, turmeric, and black pepper. You can also add peppercorns to the tea ball with the garlic.

Cover and cook on high two hours, then turn to low for at least 6 more hours or even longer.

Remove larger pieces with tongs, then strain the rest of the broth through a fine mesh strainer into a smaller pot. I use my smaller round Le Creuset dutch oven. Let cool, then refrigerate.

The next day, remove the fat layer on the top.

Reheat a small amount in a small sauce pan, add sea salt or fish sauce, other spices if desired, and enjoy!

If you go with the beef bones, you can add a whole white onion, peeled and halved. The broth is perfect as a base for Bun Bo Hue or Bo Kho, two other popular Vietnamese dishes.

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About Me

Welcome to the Nguyen and Rasico melting pot! His roots are Sicilian, and I'm Vietnamese. We both grew up in Arkansas, but relocated to Portland, Oregon in 2014. We love all kinds of food. It's fun to write about what you love...and I love to cook. So this blogging thing is the perfect platform - it challenges me to cook good food for my family and friends. It's also great to have a place where I can refer back to recipes any time. We love to cook with ingredients from all around the globe. I worked in French, Mediterranean and Italian restaurants while putting myself through college, and it was fascinating to watch the food get cooked. My TV is always on Food Network. If not, my husband always changes the TV from ESPN to Food Network when he leaves the room for me. Then there are all the cookbooks that I pick up at the library. If they're really good, I actually purchase them from Barnes & Noble, the ultimate bookstore that sells Starbucks Caramel Lattes and comes with a children's section! All the food pictures on my blog were taken by myself, unless I note otherwise. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at thanhrasico@gmail.com. Thanks for coming by...